GIFT OF 
 
 P 
 
THE 
 
 PRACTICE OF 
 IDOLATRY 
 
 L. A. CRAIGHEN 
 
"My little children, these things I write to you that you may 
 not sin. But if any sin,we have an advocate with the Father, 
 Jesus Christ the just!' 
 
 "And now, little children, abide in him, that when he shall 
 appear, we may have confidence, and not be confounded by 
 his coming! 3 
 
 "And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God: this is 
 the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, 
 and he is now already in the world!' 
 
 "In this is charity: not as though we had loved God, but 
 because he hath first loved us, and sent his Son to be a pro- 
 pitiation for our sins!' 
 
 "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 
 
 First epistle of St. John the evangelist. 
 
THE 
 
 PRACTICE OF 
 IDOLATRY 
 
 WRITTEN 1914 BY 
 
 L.A. CRAIGHEN 
 
Copyright, 1914, by/L A. Craighen 
 
The Practice of Idolatry 
 
 NOTE This criticism does not deny the Catholic doctrine of the proper honor and invocation 
 of saints. It condemns the practice which gives them the prayer of God. 
 
 When I speak of the church in this criticism, I do not mean the divine power in the 
 Sacraments nor the infallible voice of the chair of Peter. I mean the church; my meaning 
 is seen in the context. When I speak of Rome, I do not mean Pius X nor Benedict XII; 
 I mean Rome. 
 
 WE believe that Jesus is God ; therefore, centuries and ages ago, 
 before our Lord took human nature, he was still present every- 
 where, and present by grace in souls. He was still Jesus in per- 
 son. Grace was an actual fact. 
 
 He was present bestowing grace, and present by grace as Jesus, but 
 not yet incarnate in his actual local body of the human generation of 
 Eve. Mary did not exist at this time ; but Jesus existed and was our 
 Saviour; purifying bodies and souls then as now by grace. (Mich. 5:2. 
 Apoc. 13 :8. 2 Tim. 1 19. i Cor. 10:1-4.) 
 
 So long ago as the time of Solomon, speaking to the Jews of their 
 Holy Place, he said "My Eyes and my Heart are always there." 
 
 Thus he expressed that fundamental doctrine of religion that 'God is 
 here, and knows and loves us. 
 
 But to the Maryites he is not present; and the eyes and heart of 
 Mary, a local and limited human being, created in time, are addressed 
 as the heart and eyes present. 
 
 Since the incarnation, when the eyes and heart of our Lord are not 
 only his presence as God, but also the presence of his humanity in 
 heaven and in the Sacrament ; not only in person and grace, but also 
 in flesh and blood; he is ignored by those who address themselves in 
 word and heart to a woman who is not present and who address her in 
 his place. 
 
 If you enter a Catholic church at any time you will be almost sure to 
 find Maryites kneeling before the "altar of Mary," adoring her and 
 praying to her. One of the teachings of the false prophet is that we 
 must go to church to "pay a visit to our Lady." She is taught exactly 
 the same as our Lord in practice. 
 
 How can we expect anything else but idolatry in fact, when it is 
 taught in word and practice? If the Maryites really believed in a differ- 
 ence between the worship of Jesus and that of Mary, they would feel a 
 difference and express a difference. But the evidence goes to show that 
 what they feel is the presence of Mary and not that of Jesus. Even 
 those who have also some love for our Lord worship both in the same 
 way. 
 
 No wonder there are Modernists. 
 
 More prayer is given by the Maryites to the "altar of Mary" than to 
 the altar of Jesus ; and when kneeling before the altar of Jesus they are 
 busy in praying, not to Jesus, but to Mary. (Zach. 13 :6.) 
 
 They do not seem to comprehend that the thing that justifies us in 
 
 [3 ] 
 
PfeACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 praying to Jesus is the fact that he is God ; if he were not God, prayer 
 to him would be idolatry. These Catholics are pagans ; their practice 
 and principles are those of paganism, not those of Christianity. (2 Cor. 
 3:12-16.) 
 
 Because God condescended to become man, and permits us to pray to 
 him in this nature, do they think that they can therefore pray to any 
 human being? This is what their practice indicates. (15.46:8-9). 
 
 If Constantine, who when he placed the Cross above the Eagle was 
 not yet converted to Christianity, but only to the idea that the Christian 
 God was more powerful than the others, had continued later in his ad- 
 herence to Arianism, would the "church" have continued its adherence 
 to that doctrine which was as powerful and prevalent and as well au- 
 thorized as idolatry is now? 
 
 When Catholics taught that our Lord is not God the false prophet 
 was pleased to worship him as man; but now that he is compelled to 
 acknowledge his divinity he transfers his allegiance to Mary. His aim 
 is the dishonor of God. (Apoc. 17:12-13.) 
 
 When our Lord left this earth in his local form, he said, "I will not 
 leave you orphans, I will come to you," . . . and "I will send you the 
 Paraclete, the Holy Spirit." 
 
 But the idolaters refuse to believe our Lord, and pray to Mary as a 
 present paraclete to console them for an absent Jesus. (John 15 :4. John 
 14:18-20.) 
 
 There are "apologists" who claim that the worship of Mary is not 
 idolatry because it is "referred" to God; and that as Catholics know 
 she is not God they cannot be called idolaters. 
 
 This is exactly why they are idolaters; if they did not know the dif- 
 ference, they would not be guilty. 
 
 (John 9:40-41. John 15:22. Gal. 4:8-10.) 
 
 The practice of the cult of Mary is based on false doctrines which 
 deny the true faith ; and the practice of Catholics shows that they "be- 
 lieve" these doctrines while knowing that they are not true. (Is. 5:20.) 
 
 A little girl once defined faith as "believing what you know isn't 
 true." This is the faith of the Maryites ; and their practice shows that 
 they also think the real truths of faith are not true. (Is. 9:13-16.) 
 
 No wonder there are Modernists. 
 
 There is another class of apologists and "explainers" who tell us that 
 all the things Catholics say about Mary and to Mary are "metaphors 
 and figures," and that the people who say them "do not really mean 
 them," but have the true faith. (2 Cor. n :i3. 2 Cor. 1 : 17-20.) 
 
 But the Catholic practice shows that if they do not mean these things 
 they do not mean anything in the practice of religion. 
 
 The practice of Maryites means that for them Mary is the mediator 
 and intercessor with God in our Lord's place; the name in which we 
 must pray, the person by whose merits and prayers we obtain grace, the 
 person by whose sufferings we are redeemed, the present God who is 
 here and knows and loves us. 
 
 [ 4 ] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 Idolatry has become such a habit with Catholics that they look upon 
 any person who questions it as the pagans looked upon the first Chris- 
 tians when they said, "What new delusion has brought in these sophists 
 who deny the worship of the gods ?" So do Catholics regard a Catholic 
 who worships as the Apostles worshipped. 
 
 The Prayer of the Laity 
 
 Let us examine the Catholic practice. 
 
 The catechism officially prepared and ordered by the third Plenary 
 Council of Baltimore for the use of American Catholics has a chapter 
 on prayer. 
 
 The question "What is prayer?" is answered, "Prayer is the lifting 
 up of our minds and hearts to God to adore him, to thank him for his 
 benefits, to ask his forgiveness, and to beg of him all the graces we need 
 for soul or body." 
 
 The question "Which prayers are most recommended ?" is answered, 
 "The prayers most recommended to us are the Our Father, the Hail 
 Mary, The Apostles Creed, the Confiteor, and the Acts of Faith, Hope, 
 and Charity." 
 
 The Hail Mary is taught as prayer to God, and there is no prayer to 
 Jesus in the list. 
 
 At the front of the catechism is a list of all the prayers required to 
 be memorized by Catholics preparing for Holy Communion and Con- 
 firmation, 'and this list contains all the prayers taught to Catholics as re- 
 quired by the church for them to know and use. 
 
 The list is : the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Apostles Creed, the 
 Confiteor, the Acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, the Act of Contrition, 
 and grace before and after meals. 
 
 There is no prayer to Jesus among them. And no prayer through 
 Jesus, except that in the Act of Hope it is mentioned that we hope to 
 obtain pardon through the merits of Jesus Christ. (Is. 26:14.) 
 
 Catholic prayer ignores Jesus. It adores our Lord as God only, when 
 it adores him at all. It puts Mary in his place as the channel and medi- 
 um of prayer, praying in her name to God and usually addressing her. 
 (Apoc. 2:14.) 
 
 The command of our Lord and the obligations of Catholic truth re- 
 quire that children should be taught to pray to Jesus and to pray in his 
 name. Does the church teach children to pray to Jesus and in his name ? 
 It does not. 
 
 The church has no obligation to teach children to pray to Mary or in 
 her name ; but the church teaches children to pray to Mary and in her 
 name. 
 
 The church has no right to command prayer to Mary and in her 
 name, but she should command prayer to Jesus. 
 
 The church commands prayer to Mary, but she does not command 
 prayer to Jesus. 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 As soon as a Catholic child can speak he is taught to pray the Hail 
 Mary. 
 
 The Our Father is long and perhaps difficult for childish minds and 
 lips, but this is no excuse for teaching prayer to Mary in place of 
 prayer to Jesus. 
 
 When a Catholic at any time desires some grace or favor from God, 
 she kneels and says the Hail Mary, and rises thinking she has prayed. 
 
 When you start to church in the morning, your friend who is not 
 going calls out to you, "Say a Hail Mary for me." This is what Catho- 
 lics call "praying" for each other. 
 
 Catholics habitually pray to Mary and in her name ; it is the ordinary 
 form of their prayer. 
 
 Catholics are taught an obligation of prayer to Mary, but no obliga- 
 tion of prayer to Jesus. 
 
 A Jesuit catechism giving a list of the prayers I have mentioned 
 above says that it is a "mortal sin" for Catholics not to know them; 
 but he places no prayer to Jesus among them. 
 
 The obligation of prayer to Mary is taught under threats of eternal 
 damnation if it is neglected ; Catholics are taught from infancy to be- 
 lieve that salvation depends upon prayer to Mary and upon her will and 
 favor. 
 
 Catholics pray formally and by command of the church to Mary. It 
 is the ordinary official and formal prayer laid upon the Catholic laity 
 by the church. 
 
 When you go to confession, your confessor tells you to say for your 
 penance "five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys." He may omit the 
 Our Fathers, but he does not omit the Hail Marys. 
 
 When during Mass the priest and people pray together for the dead, 
 they do so by saying Our Fathers and Hail Marys ; they may or may 
 not add a Gloria. 
 
 Catholics use the Hail Mary without the Our Father ; but they do not 
 use the Our Father without the Hail Mary. 
 
 Prayer to Mary is considered an essential part of prayer to God, and 
 it is considered as itself prayer to God. 
 
 No prayer to God is considered complete or efficacious that omits 
 prayer to Mary. 
 
 The Mass 
 
 What is the Mass? 
 
 On the part of the people it is supposed to be an act of religion 
 through our Lord as Mediator with God. They are supposed to pray 
 to God through him, and to him as Mediator. 
 
 What do they really do? 
 
 The Maryites spend their time praying to Mary, either with or with- 
 out their beads. They are present at Mass, but they do not assist at it. 
 
 They are like the people who stood around when our Lord was cruci- 
 fied, looking on with indifference and praying to other deities. Mocking 
 him by their indifference and their idolatry. 
 
 [ 6 ] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 The Rosary practice of Mass is even taught as a special means of 
 grace. (15.24:5.) 
 
 Every Low Mass is concluded with formal prayer to Mary. Mary is 
 addressed as present and asked to console us for the absence of Jesus. 
 
 This prayer after Mass is the only part of the Mass in which the 
 people join their voices to the voice of the priest. A prayer to Mary and 
 in her name is the prayer of the people at Mass. 
 
 Where was the Congregation of Rites when in 1884 Leo XIII added 
 these prayers to the Mass that Congregation which in 1815 was so 
 jealous for the integrity of the faith that it refused to add the name of 
 St. Joseph to the list of Saints in the Canon? (2 Cor. n :2~3. Math. 23 : 
 24.) 
 
 These prayers are not commanded after High Mass. This gives the 
 false prophet a loophole by which to escape when he is accused. For 
 the explainers say that as the prayers are not commanded after every 
 Mass they have not been added to it. But this is used to quiet objec- 
 tions until we become so accustomed to the prayers that we will no 
 longer object. Then the fact that they have been used will be offered as 
 proof that they must be used. 
 
 Cowley Clarke says in his work, "The Hand Book of the Divine 
 Liturgy," that "They are not yet a part of the Mass," but he points 
 hopefully to indications that they will be. Practically, they are part of 
 the Mass, for they are ordered after every Low Mass, every day, every- 
 where. (Is. 5 :2O. Gal. 1 18-9. ) 
 
 The Maryites go up. to receive Holy Communion with their rosaries 
 held between their hands. (Luke 22:21.) To them Mass and Com- 
 munion are acts of religion through the intercession of Mary. 
 
 By what acrobatic and omnipotent performance any soul "offers" its 
 prayers and acts "through" Mary or "through the heart of Mary," I 
 am not able to comprehend. I suppose it is one of those things they 
 "don't mean." For Jesus being God, and actually present to the soul, 
 we can offer ourselves to God through him, and to God in him. Mary 
 is not there. 
 
 To offer in imagination through her is an insult to him, an insult to 
 his real presence in the soul, and to his whole work of mediator and 
 intercessor, an insult to his being as God and man. 
 
 It shows how little faith they have in him how little confidence, how 
 little love. It shows what an imaginary thing their religion is. This is 
 not "humility" ; it is Uriah Heep servility. It is fantastic egotism and 
 fashion. It proves that our Lord's presence to the soul is as imaginary 
 to such persons as that of Mary. 
 
 No wonder there are Modernists. 
 
 The Rosary and Litany of Mary 
 
 Every evening in Catholic churches all over the world a special re- 
 ligious service to Mary is held. It consists of the rosary and litany of 
 
 [ 7 ] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 the Blessed Virgin. It is usually said kneeling before the statue of 
 Mary; this is better than when it is said kneeling before the Blessed 
 Sacrament. 
 
 The litany of the Blessed Virgin is as well known to Catholics as the 
 multiplication table. But few know the litany of our Lord's Holy 
 Name. The litany of the Blessed Virgin addresses Mary by many titles 
 that belong to Jesus. 
 
 Not long ago I went into a church and found priest and people kneel- 
 ing before the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar and slowly and 
 solemnly chanting the litany of the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 On rosary Sunday I went into a church where the Holy Name So- 
 ciety was receiving Holy Communion in a body. There was no music. 
 Solemn silence reigned. Immediately after the consecration the leader 
 in a loud voice began the litany as I supposed, of the Holy Name. 
 What was my surprise to find as it continued that it was the litany of 
 Loretto ! What an insult at such a moment ! (Judges 2:17.) 
 
 Benediction is an occasional evening service of the church. It is a 
 service of praise to our Lord and of benediction from him. It is seldom 
 given except as a conclusion to the rosary and litany of the Blessed 
 Virgin, though some churches use the vesper service on Sunday. 
 
 The Maryites spend the whole time of Benediction saying the rosary 
 and praying to Mary with their beads. Many of them do not cease pray- 
 ing to Mary while the Host is being elevated. (Zach. 2:13.) 
 
 The rosary and the litany of Mary are the only part of the evening 
 service in which the people join their voices with the voice of the priest. 
 Between the litany and Benediction idolatrous prayers to Mary are 
 often sung. Rarely are there churches where the people join in the 
 prayers of Benediction. 
 
 In a newspaper article on church music I find the following: "Not 
 long ago an organist played the barcarolle from the 'Tales of Hoffman' 
 at the most solemn moment of the Mass. He forgot the difference be- 
 tween amorous and religious ecstasy." 
 
 But the same criticism applies to the singing of hymns to Mary. For 
 these substitute amorous for religious ecstasy at the solemn moments 
 of divine worship, when the soul should be addressed to God and his 
 Christ ; at other times they substitute Mary for him, to whom we should 
 sing "Veni, Jesu, amor me." 
 
 The true faith teaches that we should call Mary blessed, and that we 
 should pray to Jesus. 
 
 The Hail Mary reverses this order. It calls Jesus blessed and prays 
 to Mary. 
 
 The whole Maryite system of devotion and prayer does the same. 
 
 The Rosary 
 
 In the rosary ("Most Holy Rosary") our Lord is regarded as a mov- 
 ing picture and Mary is addressed in prayer. 
 
 [ 8 ] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 There is a use and a misuse of the rosary. 
 
 The rosary as a prayer is a prayer to Mary. There is an occasional 
 Our Father placed among the Hail Marys, but the intention of the rosary 
 is honor to Mary and prayer to Mary. 
 
 There are some explainers who have been inconsistent enough to say 
 that the rosary is a meditation on our Lord, and that it is to honor and 
 teach him. This they say because they have been accused of idolatry in 
 the rosary. This is the false prophet's method of crawling out of diffi- 
 culties, and he and the Maryite are satisfied when they have announced 
 an explanation which does not explain and which everybody knows is 
 not true. The dishonesty is apparent to everyone. 
 
 The rosary is preached and practiced as a devotion to Mary and as 
 an act of honor of Mary. It is taught as a means of gaining her "pro- 
 tection" and of obtaining "favors" from her. It is preached as a power- 
 ful instrument for creating "confidence" in Mary and for saving souls 
 by her intercession. The intention of the meditations in the rosary is to 
 furnish grounds for confidence in Mary. 
 
 In the rosary of the Blessed Virgin the incarnation and salvation is 
 made to begin and end in Mary. It begins with her person and ends 
 with her person. To the Maryite she is taught as the cause and the 
 means of salvation and of the incarnation, and her "assumption into 
 heaven" is taught as the completion of our salvation. She is taught as 
 the First and the Last. The life of our Lord is taught as something that 
 relates to her, and as applied to us by her through her great mercy and 
 love. Instead of making our Lord the object and the medium and the 
 person of grace and salvation, Mary is put in his place of mediation be- 
 tween God and men. And all the while Mary is addressed in prayer as 
 the person listening and mediating between the soul and God. 
 
 The rosary of the Blessed Virgin, as it is used, is a device of the devil. 
 It is the chief means by which Mary has been substituted for our Lord 
 in the lives of modern Catholics. The practice of it is surrounded by 
 legends and superstitions which substitute Mary for Jesus and the honor 
 of her for the honor of him. 
 
 The church was 1200 years old when this rosary was invented. The 
 ages following its introduction into the Western church were ages of 
 ignorance, superstition, infidelity, and corruption. These are called by 
 the false prophet the "Ages of Faith," because at that time the temporal 
 church was at the height of its worldly glory and power. These were 
 the ages when the Blessed Sacrament was so neglected, when the great- 
 est saints received Communion only seldom, and when frequent Com- 
 munion was almost considered a heresy ; when the church was obliged 
 to make a law that Catholics should receive at least once a year. 
 
 Protestantism came a few centuries after the introduction of the ro- 
 sary of the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 Great is the noise with which the advocates of the rosary herald it 
 on rosary Sunday as our means of protection from the devil and the 
 only salvation of the church. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 They have so little faith in our Lord and in his promises and his re- 
 ligion that they tell us that if it had not been for the intercession of 
 Mary, secured by marching behind her statue and reciting her rosary, 
 the Christian faith would have been wiped off from the face of the 
 earth by the Turks. 
 
 With loud roaring does the false prophet hold up the Image arrayed 
 as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. 
 
 But we who know our Lord are not deceived. We perceive the don- 
 key under the lion's skin. 
 
 "God- Mary" Prayer 
 
 The practice of using the Hail Mary in combination with the Our 
 Father as the official and formal prayer of the laity substitutes the name 
 of Mary for the name of Jesus as the name in and by which we pray, 
 (i Tim. 2:5.)! 
 
 Instead of praying to the Father in and with the name of Jesus ; instead 
 of addressing Jesus in prayer in his capacity of Mediator ; in humanity, 
 as well as in divinity; Mary is substituted for the humanity. Instead of 
 praying in the name of the ''Lamb in the midst of the Throne," the 
 prayer of the Catholic laity is in the name "God-Mary." 
 
 So does the false prophet dissolve Jesus, (i John 4:3.) 
 
 So accustomed are Catholics to saying the Hail Mary as a necessary 
 accompaniment to the Our Father, that a Catholic having said the Our 
 Father goes on into the Hail Mary automatically and unconsciously. 
 Mary and God have become one person to him. (John 14 :6. John 16:23- 
 27. Ephes. 5 120.) 
 
 In a popular book, written to explain Catholic doctrine and practice, 
 the author tells us that he sees Mary beside our Lord at the cradle and 
 at the Cross, and therefore her name must not be "divorced" from his in 
 prayer. And this is written by a man who believes that Jesus is God and 
 that Mary is not. (Faith of our Fathers: Cardinal Gibbons.) 
 
 Does he call these God-Mary prayers "linking the names of Jesus 
 and Mary" ? 
 
 To such excuses do men descend when they think they must defend 
 every practice, no matter what it is. (Apoc. 2 114. Ephes. 4:30.) 
 
 But our Lord commands us to pray to him in his own name. He also 
 commands us to pray to the Father in his name. 
 
 He tells us that the Father so loves us, if we thus love him, that he 
 does not need even to ask the Father for us ; for our use of his name is 
 sufficient to procure for us from the Father all we desire. Our prayer 
 in his name being to the Father evidence of our faith. (John 16:23-27. 
 John 14:13-15.) 
 
 A Jesuit writer, in a book written for the perusal of Protestants 
 ("What the Catholic Church Is and What She Teaches"), says that"the 
 language of foreign devotional writers ought to be taken rather in a 
 poetical sense" ; that it "is not serious doctrinal prose" ; and he tries to 
 
 [10] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 convince Protestants that it is not the usual faith and practice of Cath- 
 olics. He adds that "it is a matter of taste," and that matters of taste 
 are not matters of dogma. (Is. 9 :i3-) 
 
 Is the above God-Mary practice of prayer commanded by the church 
 a matter of taste? 
 
 He also writes : "Neither can it be objected that we pray too much to 
 saints and too little to God. The whole of the Mass and Communion, 
 Vespers, Benediction, Stations of the Cross, Devotions to the Sacred 
 Heart, the use of the Sacraments these one and all are acts of the 
 direct worship of God; prayers to saints are, as it were, thrown in in- 
 cidentally now and then, and hold the subsidiary place to which they 
 are entitled." (Is. 5 120.) 
 
 But the acts of worship that he mentions are not the Catholic prac- 
 tice of prayer; and the existence of these functions of worship does not 
 prove that Catholics do not pray too much to saints. 
 
 With the exception of Holy Communion and Penance, the Sacra- 
 ments are received only once in a lifetime. Holy Communion and Pen- 
 ance are received frequently only by the few. 
 
 We have seen that for the Maryites Holy Communion and Penance 
 are chiefly occasions of prayer to Mary. 
 
 We examine the other acts he mentions, and we find in them in prac- 
 tice the same "character of the beast" the worship of the image of the 
 Antichrist that displaces Jesus under the name of Mary, an insult to 
 Mary as well as to Jesus. 
 
 The Sacred Heart 
 
 Let us look at the devotion of the Sacred Heart. 
 
 This devotion was inaugurated in comparatively modern times as a 
 result of some revelations made by our Lord to the heart, but not to the 
 head, of the Blessed Margaret Mary. He complains that he is unknown 
 and neglected especially in the Blessed Sacrament, that proof and 
 pledge of his love. 
 
 When I first became a member of the League of the Sacred Heart we 
 made the Morning Offering which constituted us a member thus : "O 
 my God, I offer thee my prayers, works and sufferings of this day in 
 union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, for all the intentions for which 
 he offers himself in the Mass." 
 
 The morning offering is now made thus : "O Jesus, through the Im- 
 maculate Heart of Mary, I offer thee my prayers, works and sufferings 
 of this day," etc. 
 
 The Maryites have revised the offering by substituting Jesus for the 
 Father, and Mary for Jesus. 
 
 The catechism of the Christian Brothers teaches the Morning Offer- 
 ing as follows : "O my God, in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and 
 through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer my prayer, works," etc. 
 
 Jesus, as man and Mediator is done away with. He is God the Trinity 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 in flesh ; Mary is the humanity and the Mediator between God and men. 
 He is the flesh of Mary, and Mary is the person of the Mediator. Such 
 is the heresy. 
 
 The idolaters teach that we have no immediate communication with 
 him and no claim upon him, but can only reach him through Mary. The 
 Jesus of the Holy Scriptures he is no longer. 
 
 This religion of the idolater is a different religion from that taught by 
 the Apostles and defined in the fundamental definitions of the church. 
 It is contradictory to that taught by our Lord and recorded in the tradi- 
 tion handed down from the Apostles in the Holy Scriptures. 
 
 The false prophet aborts every attempt to establish prayer in our 
 Lord's name, confidence in him personally, and devotion to himself. 
 (Mark 7 7-9.) 
 
 Devotion to the Sacred Heart of our Lord is sinking into a sort of 
 cult; not a devotion to our Lord in person, but the worship of a thing 
 through the person of Mary. 
 
 For instance, idolaters "offer the Sacred Heart reposing in the taber- 
 nacles to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary." And they 
 "offer" their communions "to the Sacred Heart through the Immacu- 
 late Heart of Mary." (St. John 5:43.) 
 
 Could there be anything sillier or farther from fact and truth, from 
 faith and reason, from love for our Lord ? 
 
 The Blessed Sacrament 
 
 Our Holy Father Pius X tried to stem the tide of idolatry and "re- 
 store all things in Christ" by promoting devotion to the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment. This is the road to sanity. For the Blessed Sacrament destroys all 
 heresies when truly preached.lt is the seat and center of the unity of the 
 church. 
 
 But will the idolaters turn this into the worship of Mary in the 
 Blessed Sacrament? They will surely try it, for this is already a prac- 
 tice. 
 
 In a book on the "Cult of Mary," by the Rev. Thomas Gerrard, I 
 find this : 
 
 "There are two points which seem to have given offense in the past. 
 The first was an assertion that somehow the flesh of Mary is received 
 in the Blessed Sacrament. Pope Benedict exposed this error in the 
 words, 'This doctrine was held to be erroneous, dangerous, and scandal- 
 ous, and the cultus was reprobated, which in consequence of it they as- 
 serted was to be paid to the most Blessed Virgin in the Sacrament of 
 the altar.'" 
 
 But what do we actually find in the church at the present time? 
 
 In all prayer-books and books of devotion to the Blessed Sacrament 
 we find the prayer "Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, pray for us," 
 with "300 days indulgence if said kneeling before the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment." 
 
 [12] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 We find Catholics spend their time when kneeling before the Blessed 
 Sacrament in praying to Mary. We find them going to church to "pay 
 a visit to our Lady," or to "pay a visit to our Lady's altar," to say some 
 rosaries, and so to get an indulgence (which I suspect they don't get). 
 
 There are explainers who will tell you "they don't mean it." But if 
 they don't mean it, why do they do it? Why don't they do what they 
 mean ? 
 
 The Messenger of the Sacred Heart for July, 1912, in an article on 
 "The Eucharistic Propaganda," says : 
 
 "They who would see the Blessed Sacrament better known and loved, 
 who would make the name of Jesus great among the nations, who 
 would bring greater numbers to bow down with loving worship in his 
 sacred presence," etc., etc., "should pray to Mary without ceasing to 
 keep a stricter watch over Christ's anointed, to lead them . . . to turn 
 their thoughts incessantly," etc. 
 
 So is Mary substituted for Jesus as God and as man. 
 
 I know a church where an effort is made to increase devotion to the 
 Blessed Sacrament. On Fridays there is the devotion of the Holy Hour. 
 (Is. 1 : 9 .) 
 
 The hour begins by placing the Blessed Sacrament in the open mon- 
 strance on the altar. 
 
 Then priest and people kneel before it and what do they do? They 
 recite the rosary of the Blessed Virgin ; that is, they pray to God in the 
 name of Mary, and they pray to Mary. They place our Lord before 
 them, and address him "Hail Mary" ! 
 
 After this there are meditations read, each followed by a hymn. The 
 meditations are on our Lord, except occasionally when they are on 
 Mary. They sometimes end with an invocation of our Lord, and they 
 sometimes end with an invocation to Mary. 
 
 After the meditations there are some prayers addressed by the people 
 to our Lord in person. 
 
 O, sound so unusual in a Catholic church ! Sound to which our Lord 
 is so unaccustomed ! 
 
 The hour ends with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament and the 
 singing of the "Divine Praises" and "Holy God." 
 
 During Benediction the Maryites pray to Mary with their beads as 
 usual. Also many of them do so during the reading of the meditations 
 and the blessing with the Host. 
 
 When the divine praises are sung, the praises of God and of Jesus 
 are rushed through with at a rapid pace and in monotone ; but when the 
 praise of Mary, who is not divine, is reached, the choir slows the music, 
 and by every turn of expression they give voice to their praise of the 
 person they really honor. The praise of the "mother of God," of the 
 "Immaculate Conception," and of the "name of Mary" are drawn out 
 and lingered on with love and expression; there is no such honor for 
 our Lord and his name, (i Cor. 16:22.)' 
 
 [13] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 It must be hard for some of the idolaters to endure what honor our 
 Lord gets during the Holy Hour. 
 
 The hour has been fruitful of devotion to our Lord ; so does he steal 
 into the heart when given even a small opportunity. 
 
 The Maryites who kneel before our Lord rattling their rosaries in his 
 face always remind me of those who bound him so that he could not 
 move and then struck him. 
 
 Rosaries and Hail Marys are the phylacteries of the idolater. 
 
 The rosary of the Blessed Virgin, and the Hail Mary, as they are 
 used, are based on a morbid or fashionable sentimentality and not on 
 religion. They are to religion what French candy is to food. The doc- 
 trine based on them is a sickness of religion like the sickness of a body 
 nourished on candy. They don't teach our Lord. They teach the habit 
 of idolatry. They teach Mary as the Mediator and the intimate presence 
 of prayer. 
 
 The rosary teaches Mary in our place in relation to our Lord, and it 
 teaches her in our Lord's place in relation to us. In meditating on the 
 rosary, the rosarian, instead of being and feeling himself in his own 
 place of relation to our Lord, is looking at Mary as in this place, and 
 regarding himself as absent from it, and as having no such relation, 
 but as being a pensioner of Mary. He is also addressing Mary as in our 
 Lord's relation to us. This practice of the rosary of Mary is extremely 
 vicious. It is one of the most important instruments of the idolater. It 
 does its work of perversion automatically. It puts its devotees into this 
 false position and relation. It establishes this false relation in the 
 church as the habit of souls. It establishes this habit as a sort of "im- 
 manent sense." This immanent sense is a creation of the Antichrist. It 
 is taught by the modernists as something infallible, because it is a habit 
 of Catholics. This habit of soul denies the Catholics' faith in its founda- 
 tions. It denies the revelation and the teaching of our Lord and the 
 Apostles. It is commanded by the Antichrist in opposition to the com- 
 mands of our Lord "Pray to the Father in my name. . . . Pray to me 
 in my name. . . . Behold my mother and my sister and my brother." 
 
 Why do not Catholics, who are otherwise reasonable people, discover 
 this false relation and contradiction ? Because idolatry darkens the un- 
 derstanding by cutting the soul off from its relation to God. 
 
 In some places you will find people who seldom go to church, but 
 who have images and pictures before which they burn candles. They do 
 not go to Mass, but they make novenas to saints at home. There are also 
 neighbors who ridicule their practice and who are infidels, though they 
 should be Catholics. For infidelity is the fruit of idolatry. The church 
 who has taught and authorized these practices thus suffers, not as the 
 follower of Christ, but as his enemy. (Pet. 4:15-16. 2 Pet. 2:1-2. Osee 
 2:10-13. Apoc. 17:15-18.) 
 
 Of course, these idolaters know, no matter how ignorant they are, 
 that the saints are not God ; they do not worship them as God, but they 
 worship them in the place of God. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 And this is what the false prophet tells us is not idolatry. (Rom. 1:21- 
 
 250 
 
 Not long ago I went into a church where the schoolchildren were at 
 Mass. They began to recite the rosary aloud as the priest ascended the 
 altar. Their voices were harsh and distressing. I was sorry for the 
 priest, but perhaps he liked it. The children were not so attentive as 
 children I have seen who do not say the rosary during Mass. Their 
 mouths were busy and their eyes wandered around the church. The 
 loud recitation continued to the Sanctus bell ; there was silence during 
 the actual words of the consecration ; then the rosary began again and 
 continued to the communion of the people. After this I went out ; but 
 as I went I heard the voices again in the "prayers after Mass." 
 
 These children did not hear Mass. They prayed to God through the 
 intercession of Mary. They were present at Mass, but they did not as- 
 sist at it. 
 
 This is the way the Maryites are trained to hear Mass. And the 
 apologizer tells us that Mass is an act of direct worship of God, and 
 therefore Catholics only pray to Mary once in a while. 
 
 A two-page leaflet distributed at the church door during the month of 
 June purports to be devotion to the Sacred Heart. 
 
 It contains prayer to the Heart of Mary. Evidently "Sacred Heart" 
 means "Sacred Hearts," just as "Saviour" means to the idolaters 
 "Mary-Jesus" when it does not mean "Queen of heaven." 
 
 This leaflet contains the heresy which teaches that prayer to Jesus 
 must be in the name of Mary. 
 
 It contains a paragraph addressed to the heart of Mary, asking her to 
 "present" these prayers, resolutions, acts of love, etc., to the heart of 
 Jesus, and "having been my protectress here on earth, Blessed Mother, 
 you will be my queen in heaven." 
 
 This is part of the Act of Consecration. The concluding words of the 
 Act are, "Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation; Jesus, mercy; amen." 
 
 In the Act of Reparation, the "Sacred Heart reposing in the taber- 
 nacle" is "offered" to the "Sacred Heart of Jesus" "through the Im- 
 maculate Heart of Mary." 
 
 These things are so tortuous that they are painful. This is an indul- 
 genced prayer. (15.32:6.) 
 
 Among the "aspirations" to the Sacred Heart in this leaflet are the 
 following: "Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation" and "Sweet 
 Hearts of Jesus and Mary, be my Refuge." 
 
 This last aspiration is an example of that form of heresy which 
 places Mary and Jesus in the same place as objects of prayer, and is 
 perhaps what the writer previously quoted had in mind when he talked 
 so dishonestly of "linking" the names of Jesus and Mary in prayer, be- 
 cause they were linked in their local life on earth. 
 
 It is so strange that the name of Mary is so readily and so constantly 
 used by Catholics separately from the name of Jesus as the name of 
 
 [15] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 prayer, but that Jesus cannot be addressed or made an object of prayer 
 unless Mary is addressed also ! 
 
 Was there ever such a reversal of relations as that made by Catholics 
 between God and his servants, and between the name of Jesus and the 
 name of Mary? 
 
 Some examples of the union of names and relations are the follow- 
 ing: "Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary"; "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, 
 be with me in my last agony"; " Jesus, Mary, be in your soul." (Amos 
 5:25-26.15.40:25.) 
 
 The Teaching of Heresy 
 
 The practice which substitutes Mary for Jesus, by teaching that we 
 cannot, do not, or must not pray to God except through the intercession 
 of Mary, is illustrated by the instructions of books of meditation. We 
 are told to offer our meditations by the hands of Mary. To end them by 
 colloquies with her. To ask her to "help" us to make a good meditation. 
 She is prayed to as a present help. 
 
 In a Jesuit book of instructions for making a retreat we are told 
 "during the afternoon, visit the Blessed Sacrament and Our Lady ac- 
 cording to the time at your disposal." In beginning the day of retreat 
 we are told to first recite a Veni Creator to obtain the illumination of 
 the Holy Ghost, and then the Hail Mary to obtain the protection of 
 Mary. 
 
 Finally we are told that "Care must be taken to close with the Pater 
 Noster and the Hail Mary." (Apoc. 13:16-18.) 
 
 The Omnipresence of jfesus 
 
 In Mother Loyola's book on First Confession is given the following 
 preparation for examination of conscience: 
 
 "i)l. My God, help me to make a good confession. 
 "2). Dear Mother Mary, pray for me and help me. 
 "3). Dear angel ever at my side, help me. 
 
 "4). My dear Patron Saint, ask Jesus to make me sorry for my 
 sins." 
 
 Jesus is not addressed, although he only beside God and the angel are 
 present. He is closer than the angel. He is the one who can really help. 
 He is the one real medium between the soul and God. He is one whose 
 desire to help is a matter of known faith, and whose presence and love 
 and help can be relied on as certain on all occasions. It is certain that he 
 hears and attends to all the soul's prayer. It is not certain that Mary 
 and the saint do so. To address Jesus is to address the Rock of our 
 faith, whose presence and help is of faith. Only he can hear each and all 
 at once. 
 
 [16! 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 The false prophet is careful that there are plenty of substitutes, 
 and that to address Jesus does not become a habit. He does not wish 
 the soul to feel that these matters are most intimate matters of concern 
 to Jesus and the soul, and that they are not so to the others addressed, 
 and cannot be. His great object is to prevent confidence in Jesus and to 
 substitute confidence in some human being who is not present. 
 
 So does the false prophet make Jesus, the present helper and medi- 
 ator, disappear from the knowledge of Catholics, and substitutes the 
 images of the imagination. 
 
 However, Mother Loyola's books are unusually free from idolatry. 
 They teach more true religion than most books of yistruction. 
 
 Poisoning the VPells 
 
 I have a book, "Simple Talks for First Communicants," published by 
 the Mission Press of Boston. 
 
 The writer first tries to impress the child with the reality of our Lord 
 and of his presence. She says : "But you know the Babe in the manger 
 was God ; you know the Holy One dying on the Cross was God ; and 
 you know that the Sacred Host on the altar is God; he said so him- 
 self." She then destroys this faith by the following teaching. She says : 
 "If you had lived when our Lord was a tiny babe in the manger at 
 Bethlehem, if you had gone to see him, perhaps our Lady would tell 
 you that you might hold him in your arms just a minute. . . . Well 
 now, you are going to hold Jesus in your heart on Communion Day. 
 Ask our Lady to show you how to receive him, how to be ready. Ask 
 her to keep near you, and tell you how to talk to him, how to entertain 
 him in your heart. She know the best way because she is his Mother. 
 . . . Ask her every day from now until that great communion day. Say 
 every morning, 'Sweet Mother Mary, teach me how to receive your 
 Divine Son. . . . Pray for me, dear Lady, that I may receive him 
 worthily.' " 
 
 Here we see that Mary is taught as a present God who instructs the 
 heart, and Jesus as a babe who is to be held for a moment. Mary and 
 not Jesus is the present helper and instructor ; Mary and not the Holy 
 Spirit is the present God to teach how to pray. 
 
 This teacher does not tell the children that the presence of Mary is 
 only imaginary. No, she teaches Mary as really present to help all the 
 time. She teaches her as just the same as Jesus in her powers. She 
 teaches Mary as present to the child, telling her how to receive Jesus. 
 She makes Mary as much present at the Communion as Jesus, in as 
 close a relation to the soul, and almost as close a relation to the body. 
 Jesus is received into the mouth, but Mary is right there telling the 
 child how to act and what to say to him. Jesus, of course, can't tell the 
 child anything or teach her anything; he is only a babe or a wafer. The 
 real teaching of this instruction is that Jesus and Mary are present 
 spiritually in exactly the same way, and that in Holy Communion we 
 
 [17] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 receive a wafer, and we may imagine Jesus as present in the wafer in 
 the form of a babe just as we imagine Mary as holding him and hand- 
 ing him to us. There is no instruction that Mary is there in imagination 
 and Jesus in reality. If the idolaters were taught that what they believe 
 and practice in regard to Mary is only imagination, they would not be 
 so pleased to practice it. But if they do consider it imagination, they 
 consider Jesus the same; for their practice in regard to Jesus shows 
 less faith and less reality than their practice in regard to Mary. 
 
 The writer gives some good prayers to Jesus to be said after receiv- 
 ing Communion; and then she tells the child to say to Mary, "Sweet 
 Mother, I put my Communion in your hands. Offer it to your divine 
 Son, and he will offer it to his Eternal Father." 
 
 This is the religion of the Antichrist. 
 
 In such a confusion of real and imaginary in which the imaginary 
 is taught as real and the real as imaginary, and no distinction is made 
 between prayer to Jesus and prayer to Mary, nor between the relations 
 we have in prayer with one and the other, nor between the relations in 
 presence and help and grace is the child instructed by the Catholic 
 church in the religion of the idolater. 
 
 Mary is taught as the mediator between the soul and Jesus. She is 
 taught as God in everything except in his essence as divinity. But she is 
 taught as divinity itself in its relation to us. 
 
 The writer just quoted also tells the child that when she leaves the 
 altar she may pay a visit to the altar in imagination (she calls this pay- 
 ing a visit to the altar in spirit). She does not teach to pray to Jesus 
 present ; this prayer is reserved for Mary. 
 
 In prayer-books and books of instruction we are told to "consecrate" 
 ourselves to the Blessed Virgin as though she were God, and then to 
 "have confidence" in her that we "belong" to her and that she "watches" 
 over us and "protects" us. 
 
 In catechisms and prayer-books we are told that in moments of dan- 
 ger and temptation we should pray "Mother, Mary, help me" ; "Mary, 
 Mother, protect me." 
 
 The pagan idolaters went no further than the Catholic idolaters do. 
 
 Not long ago I helped to prepare a little girl for her first Communion. 
 She was twelve years old. She made her first Communion after a hur- 
 ried preparation of a few weeks; but she had gone to Sunday-school 
 spasmodically all her life, and had the home influence of sisters and 
 brother who received Communion monthly. 
 
 I found that someone had told the child to imagine that she received 
 our Lord from the hands of the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 When I remonstrated with my friend, and asked her why she 
 changed the child's first Communion from a reality to an imagination, 
 she said someone else had done this ; that she had only told her to ask 
 the Blessed Virgin to help her make a good Communion. Which of 
 these two follies was the better? 
 
 When we talked of prayer I told the child that she must remember 
 
 [18] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 that the Hail Mary is only the invocation of a saint, and that prayer is 
 addressed to God. 
 
 She replied in great surprise and consternation, "But the Blessed 
 Virgin is just the same as God." I said, "No, she is not." The child an- 
 swered, "But she is just as good as God anyway." I said "No" again. 
 
 The next day the child told me she had asked her grandmother, and 
 her grandmother said that the Hail Mary must be prayer. "For if not, 
 why should the priests say it?" (2 Thes. 2:1-10.) 
 
 One priest of her Sunday-school preached in church that "The inter- 
 cession of the Blessed Virgin must be necessary to salvation, or why 
 would the church call her the 'Refuge of Sinners.'" Another preached 
 that "Prayer is due to Mary as Mediator with God" ; he also said that 
 devotion to Mary is the wedding garment without which souls will be 
 cast out of heaven ; he also said that the rosary is the cause of the re- 
 tention of the Catholic faith in Ireland. (Acts 4:10-12.) 
 
 Another priest of the Sunday-school preaches that "This is the one 
 who came down from heaven and bore God, and gave God for the re- 
 demption of the world." 
 
 When the child made her first Communion she was invested with the 
 scapular immediately after and was given a rosary. My friend ex- 
 pressed satisfaction at what the Blessed Virgin had accomplished in 
 having the child make her first Communion, and that "she now belongs 
 to the Blessed Virgin." 
 
 Our Lord, when not considered as God by the Maryites, is regarded 
 by them as merely a man. He doesn't count. I am not sure that he is 
 even a man to them. He is a thing which makes the Maryites recipients 
 of grace and communion through Mary ! 
 
 This child illustrates how the religion of the idolater is acquired. It 
 is not a case of spontaneous combustion, as the false prophet teaches. 
 It is the religion carefully drilled into Catholic children. 
 
 Catholics talk about their "favorite prayers." Nine out of ten will tell 
 you that her "favorite prayer is the Hail Mary"; the others are most 
 likely to prefer the "Hail, Holy Queen." 
 
 If you ask a Catholic why she does not pray to God (or to Jesus), 
 she will say by the book, with great and virtuous rebuke, "God will 
 never condemn me for praying to his mother, for he honored and 
 obeyed her himself." (John 4:23-24.) 
 
 A rosary Catholic questioned me not long ago because she had dis- 
 covered that I do not pray to Mary nor say her rosary. She said, "The 
 Blessed Mother will not love you." I asked her why she did not pray to 
 our Lord. She replied, "Your mother is still living, but my mother died 
 when I was a child ; so I took the Blessed Virgin for my mother. I have 
 always prayed to her. When I crossed the Atlantic there was a storm 
 and I was afraid I would be drowned ; but I prayed to her to save me 
 and protect me, and she did. She has always protected me, and I have 
 always prayed to her." 
 
 But this woman's attitude toward the Blessed Virgin in prayer and 
 
 [19] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 confidence is just the same as that of devotees whose mothers are liv- 
 ing. It is of less devotion than most, for she does not pray a great deal 
 but when she does pray she does it with a rosary. 
 
 Now, this woman did not "take the Blessed Virgin for her mother" 
 through any spontaneous idea of her own; she did it because this is 
 what they teach Catholic children to do. When mothers are not dead 
 they have other excuses for making the children do it. (Acts 10:25-26. 
 2 Tim. 2:12.) 
 
 Why did she take the Blessed Virgin for her mother? Is her own 
 mother not still existing somewhere? Why did she not keep her own 
 mother? Why should she "take" someone else's mother? If she must 
 pray to a mother, why did she not pray to her own mother? And why 
 does she put a mother in the place of God? 
 
 Instead of saying "My mother has left me, but God is present and is 
 watching over me; therefore I am not alone, for he is here; I will turn 
 to him in prayer for comfort." 
 
 No ; she turned to the Blessed Virgin in prayer, under the direction 
 of the false prophet. 
 
 She denied both her mother and her God. (Ps. 26:9-10.) 
 
 The idolaters attribute all the acts of divine Providence to Mary and 
 thank her for all answers to prayer. 
 
 If a victory is won at the same time that a rosary is said, it is proof 
 that Mary won the victory. If someone wins a victory when he is not 
 praying to Mary, it is proof that she was watching over him when he 
 didn't know it. 
 
 If some one loses a battle, Mary is thanked for saving what is left. 
 If some one falls and breaks a leg, Mary is thanked because he broke 
 one instead of two ; and this favor is attributed to the Hail Marys he 
 said at the time or to the rosaries he was in the habit of saying. 
 
 They "have confidence in Mary." 
 
 Every vision of Mary is infallible; and the most convincing "proof 
 the false prophet can offer is to say "Our Blessed Lady herself told us 
 so." (2 Tim. 3:8.) 
 
 No wonder there are Modernists. 
 
 The idolaters sadly need the instruction of St. John of the Cross in 
 regard to visions. (Ascent of Mt. Carmel.) (Mark 8:11-12. 2 Thes. 
 2:8-9.) 
 
 Convents 
 
 Convents of women are prolific sources of idolatrous teaching. The 
 following illustrates the atmosphere of convent life. It is taken from 
 the biography of the founder of an order. 
 
 - withdrew from the confessional full of perplexity and sad- 
 ness, and, as usual, had recourse to the Blessed Virgin. 'My good 
 Mother/ she said to her, before leaving the church, 'if it is our Lord's 
 will that I should go home, make my parents change their minds about 
 it, and let my mother write to me to stay in Paris.'" . . . 
 
 [20 1 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 (A letter she received that night from home is supposed to be proof 
 that Mary answered her prayer.) 
 
 . . . " - had scarcely uttered these words full of confidence in 
 divine Providence, when the porter of the house came up and gave her 
 a letter directed in an unknown hand. She opened it, and in an envelope, 
 unaccompanied by a single word of explanation, found a note for one 
 hundred francs. It was never known who sent this offering. There was 
 no one to thank but the Blessed Virgin. 
 
 "This time - had recourse to our Lady of Victories. Having 
 placed the matter in her hands, she went to call on a person who she 
 thought would lend her the money." (This person would not; but on 
 leaving the house she met a person who had heard of her undertaking 
 and who gave her the money. Of course, this proves that the Blessed 
 Virgin did it, and that she must be addressed under the title of our 
 Lady of Victories.) 
 
 The pagans have similar proofs for confidence in their gods. 
 
 Thus is God's honor given to another. (St. John 5 :43~44. Is. 42 :8.) 
 
 In the last days of there is no record of idolatry ; let us hope 
 
 that there was none, and that God through suffering taught her confi- 
 dence in and personal relation to himself. 
 
 Catholic writers tell Protestants that they should not judge of the 
 Catholic church by the average Catholic, but should judge it by the 
 saints who are the highest exemplars of it, and by the writings of the 
 explainers and apologists. 
 
 But if the saints are the measure of the Catholic training in perfec- 
 tion, the average Catholic is the measure of the average Catholic train- 
 ing. We must judge the church in general by the faith and the practice 
 of the average Catholic ; and this shows that the church does not teach 
 and practice what she defines. (Is. 1 129.) 
 
 The Maryites wandering around from one altar of Mary to another; 
 worshipping her here as "Our Lady of Victories," here as "Our Lady 
 of Good Counsel," here as "Our Lady of Perpetual Succor," here as 
 "the Mother of God," are doing what the Buddhists do when they wor- 
 ship various avatars of Buddha, and what the pagans do when they wor- 
 ship Deity under various attributes and titles and objects, (i Tim. 
 4:1-2.) 
 
 Converts 
 
 A convert who comes into the church through grace (and not through 
 some merely intellectual motive, or through some temporal motive) 
 comes instinctively to the true practice in the Sacraments. He takes to 
 them as a duck takes to water. 
 
 But the practice of idolatry he acquires with effort and repugnance. 
 It feels to him like a foreign country, but the Sacraments feel like 
 home. 
 
 The false prophet tells the convert that he must "cultivate devotion 
 to the Blessed Virgin" ; that he will never be a real Catholic until he has 
 
 [21] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 the Maryite practice in this respect ; that this spirit and practice is the 
 mark of the Catholic church by which it is known (thus does the Beast 
 put his mark on the church) ; that the person who has not this spirit 
 cannot really have faith ; that there must be something wrong with him. 
 
 These arguments do not affect the convert so much ; but when he is 
 told that the practice of idolatry produces love for Jesus, and is pro- 
 duced by love for Jesus, and that Catholics on account of it have a love 
 for Jesus that he cannot have, he makes great efforts to acquire the 
 spirit, the artificial state of mind of the idolater. 
 
 By arguments, by threats of loss of grace, by promises of extraor- 
 dinary graces and of indulgences, does the false prophet gradually con- 
 duct the convert into this heresy ; and having once acquired it, he for- 
 gets that fountain of grace from which he was sprung. He relies on 
 Mary instead of on Jesus ; and if he had true faith to begin with, in the 
 end his portion is unhappiness and bitterness. 
 
 The first devotion of the convert to Jesus is good. 
 
 While the convert is struggling to acquire the habit of the idolater, 
 the Antichrist encourages him, and spurs him to greater efforts by tell- 
 ing him that it is doubtful if he will ever succeed or ever have the true 
 faith ; that Catholics are born, not made ; that the faith and practice is 
 inherited and must be born in the blood in order to be real and correct ; 
 that converts really never acquire faith ; that they become well instruct- 
 ed and know all the explanations, but they really never have the Cath- 
 olic faith, like the Catholic who is born; that they are conscientious 
 about fulfilling the duties, but any old worshipper of Mary, though he 
 may not go to church nor receive the Sacraments, and though he may 
 live a life of sin, yet he has "The Faith" and the true practice that a 
 convert cannot have ; that it lies in faith in Mary and worship of her ; 
 that this is the real Catholic faith. 
 
 Without converts there would be no church. 
 
 The first Irish Catholics were all converts. The first German Catholics 
 were converts. Likewise the English and French and Italian. 
 
 Some of these were not true converts. They merely changed their 
 paganism, and their descendants have continued the pagan practice in 
 the church. Some pagans have had the Roman paganism forced upon 
 them with the Christian faith for instance, in Mexico, where the pa- 
 ganism of the Catholics is the same that is found in other Catholic 
 countries. (2 Pet. 2 122. Judges 2 iiQ.)' 
 
 In every nation the church is founded on converts. St. Paul, who 
 evangelized all the civilized nations of our Lord's time, was a convert. 
 St. Peter, who was made head of the Apostles, was a convert. All the 
 Apostles were converts. All the first Christians were converts. Our 
 Lord's "brethren" were converts ; when he went up to Jerusalem they 
 did not yet believe in him. Our Lord converted, and then founded his 
 church on converts. Having established a church with converts, he then 
 spread it by means of them. 
 
 The Apostles were not yet converted when our Lord was crucified. 
 
 [22] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 They were completely converted by the resurrection. St. Thomas was 
 not converted until he had put his hands into the print of the nails. 
 
 The church is full of hereditary Catholics who have never been con- 
 verted to our Lord, although they are Maryites. Perhaps because they 
 are Maryites. (2 Cor. 3:14-16.) 
 
 Testimony of Apostles 
 
 The writings of the Apostles and their successors, and the tradition 
 that has been handed down from them to us in the New Testament, are- 
 evidence of what their faith and practice were. There is no idolatry in 
 it. It is like the faith of converts before they become idolaters. (John 
 15:27.) 
 
 The Apostles lived with our Lord in person. They had seen his mir- 
 acles. They had heard all his teachings. They have left a story which 
 has been carefully preserved by Divine Providence in the church. As 
 human testimony alone, this is proof. (Gal. 1 .7-9.) 
 
 This record testifies truly to the faith and practice of the Apostles 
 and their immediate successors. The teaching of the false prophet has 
 no place in it, and is contrary to it. 
 
 The Apostles may not always have understood our Lord's teaching. 
 But they always knew what it was. They testify to the fact that they 
 knew what it was even when they did not understand it. 
 
 Dishonesty 
 
 In "explaining" to a convert the Catholic practice, the false prophet 
 says: "See how Protestants honor pictures and statues. The Catholic 
 church only does the same thing. As you keep a picture of your dead 
 mother in your room to remind you of her, as you drape pictures and 
 statues with flowers, and treat them with respect, as you salute the flag, 
 so does the Catholic church do with the memorials of those whom we 
 honor." 
 
 Liar! Do Protestants kneel before pictures and statues praying to the 
 person they represent? or to the pictures themselves? Do they burn 
 candles before pictures and statues ? 
 
 When Catholics march in procession behind the statue of the Blessed 
 Virgin on rosary Sunday, are they honoring her as the mother of our 
 Lord? No, they are not. Listen, and you will hear them praying to her. 
 They are worshipping her as a God as a present God who hears their 
 prayers and "protects" them. They are not honoring her. They are dis-* 
 honoring her, and they are trying to obtain something from her. They 
 give her honor they do not give our Lord. 
 
 "The Apostlef Fast 
 
 e bool 
 
 be Ho 
 
 [23] 
 
 "The Apostles' Fast" is a little book from the Mission Press which 
 contains a nine-days' prayer to the Holy Ghost in preparation for Pen- 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 tecost. "The Apostles' Fast" is explained in the book as the name given 
 to the ancient custom of making a nine-days' prayer at this time in im- 
 itation of the nine-days' prayer and waiting of the Apostles before the 
 first Pentecost, when in the upper room at Jerusalem they received the 
 gifts of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 This practice has disappeared from the church, so far as I know. It 
 has been supplanted by the custom of making novenas to saints. 
 
 This little book contains so much devotion to the Holy Ghost that the 
 false prophet is evidently alarmed ; and so he has provided for neutral- 
 izing the effect and making it of no reality. 
 
 The following are his devices: He has labeled each prayer in heavy 
 type. Instead of placing the Our Father by itself as a separate prayer, 
 he has made it a part of what he has labeled "The Triple Prayer'- 
 "The Triple Prayer" consisting of the "Our Father, the Hail Mary, 
 and the Creed" as one prayer. 
 
 He has also placed in this book a picture. This is the picture : 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 As you see, this depicts the gifts of the Holy Ghost as coming to the 
 soul by prayer to Mary and through the intercession of Mary. The 
 soul who wants the gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to this picture, 
 gets them by establishing himself in the relation of prayer to Mary. He 
 has a personal relation with Mary. She is the person he treats with in 
 regard to the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Our Lord is not in this picture, 
 unless he is symbolized as Divinity itself in the triangle. There is not 
 even an emblem in this picture to represent the person of our Lord in 
 relation to us. He is entirely dissolved, and Mary is in his place. The 
 other persons of the Trinity exist in this picture in special emblems 
 the Eye and the Dove. There are the Rays of the Spirit bearing the 
 gifts as flames. There is no Jesus. And Mary is represented as the per- 
 son through whose mediation the Holy Ghost is sent from the Father 
 from God. 
 
 Contrast this with our Lord's words, "I will ask the Father, and he 
 will send you the Paraclete." . . . "The Paraclete whom the Father 
 will send in my name." . . . "Ask the Father in my name." . . . "Ask 
 me in my name." 
 
 This book also contains a bit of interesting information. It says: 
 "Pentecost was also called the Feast of Roses ; and in England and else- 
 where, red roses were showered upon the people during the reading of 
 the Gospel at Mass, in remembrance of the tongues of fire, which de- 
 scended upon the Apostles." 
 
 The custom of using roses to symbolize the gifts of the Holy Ghost 
 has passed away ; but the Dominicans bless roses on rosary Sunday and 
 distribute them to the people in honor of Mary. 
 
 The Name of Prayer 
 
 Jesus says, "Pray to the Father in my name," and "Pray to me in 
 my name." 
 
 What does it mean to pray in the name of Jesus? 
 
 There is only one possible meaning. 
 
 It means to pray through the intercession of the name of Jesus. It 
 means that, because it is necessary for us to have a human intercessor 
 with God, and because this is the only name in heaven and earth that is 
 the name of that intercessor, therefore we must pray in his name. 
 
 But the Society of the Holy Name prays to God in official prayer in 
 the name of Mary as intercessor. It disobeys our Lord's command and 
 denies the true faith by putting another name in the place of inter- 
 cessor. 
 
 It is one of the clever and peculiar ironies of the false prophet that 
 he should make the Holy Name Society insult the Holy Name. 
 
 I think the Holy Name Society does not realize that it has adopted 
 the heresy of making Jesus merely a sacrifice and of making Mary our 
 intercessor with God. 
 
 [25] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 The following is the prayer : 
 
 "An Act of Consecration to the Ploly Name 
 
 "Knowing how much the Sacred Name of God is worthy of rever- 
 ence, and knowing how amiable is the Adorable Name of His Divine 
 Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, I desire to enter the Holy Name Society ; 
 I promise to observe its rules and attend its meetings, in order to pro- 
 mote the glory of his Holy Name, and my own sanctification ; and rely- 
 ing on the grace of God and the intercession of our Immaculate Mother, 
 I promise especially to abstain from all profane and immodest lan- 
 guage, and to do all in my power to prevent the use of such language by 
 others. I consecrate myself to my amiable Saviour, and wish to live and 
 die in His Holy love." 
 
 The Holy Name Society goes so far as to say it relies on this other 
 name as the name of the intercessor with God. It declares its confidence 
 in Mary as being the intercessor. 
 
 This is the great heresy. 
 
 The true faith makes no act of faith in Mary's name or in Mary's in- 
 tercession. There is no such article of faith and no such act of faith in 
 the true faith. 
 
 The false prophet requires such an act of faith ; and he also makes 
 Catholics substitute this name and this act of faith for the Catholic 
 faith in Jesus. 
 
 The true faith requires faith in God, and faith in the intercession of 
 Jesus with him. The true faith requires confidence in no other person or 
 name. To express confidence in Mary as the intercessor of our grace is 
 a denial of the Catholic faith. It is an insult to Jesus. 
 
 When a Protestant places the picture of some holy person in his 
 room, he does so in order that he may be reminded of this person and 
 of his virtues. He will say to his friend : "Place this picture in your 
 child's room that the* sight of it may keep in his mind the person it rep- 
 resents, and that he may be reminded of the virtues of this person. Tell 
 him the story of this person in order that he may be inspired by this 
 knowledge to imitate the person's virtues." There are some Catholics 
 who do the same. 
 
 But the Catholic idolater says : "Put this picture of a saint in your 
 child's room to draw down the protection of the saint. Teach your child 
 to pray to the saint every day in order that the saint in return for this 
 honor may procure grace for him. Teach your child to rely on this 
 saint for spiritual and temporal help, for the help of the saint will be in 
 proportion to the honor and prayers you pay her. If your child offends 
 God, the saint will save him from the consequences, and when he dies 
 the saint will take him into heaven. If he has sufficient confidence, and 
 pays the saint sufficient honor, he will not have to go to Purgatory." 
 
 Of course, the false prophet consents to the theory that grace has its 
 origin in God. But the saint is taught as the seat of these powers of 
 
 [26] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 God. The Catholic child is not permitted to forget that there is a God 
 and that all things were created by him. The false prophet must concede 
 something in order to keep his power in the church. Having conceded 
 this, a Catholic may practice and believe all the idolatry he chooses. He 
 may worship Mary as the seat of all God's attributes and as the vicar 
 of all his works. (2 Pet. 2 :i.)! 
 
 "The SanSluary Boy s Daily Companion" 
 
 "The Sanctuary Boy's Daily Companion" is published with the im- 
 primatur of an archbishop and circulated by the Truth Society. It con- 
 tains a picture of our Lord and a poem of aspiration for a holy life. 
 Then comes an explanation of the office and duties of an altar-boy and 
 a history of the minor orders. Following this is the ritual for serving 
 Mass, the "Prayers after Mass," the "Divine Praises," some "Rules for 
 the Sanctuary," and then some prayers. The prayers are as follows: 
 "Prayers with Indulgences," "A Visit to Our Lady," "Good-night, 
 Jesus." 
 
 These prayers teach our Lord as remaining stationary on the altar ; 
 and they teach the Blessed Virgin as remaining with the soul at all 
 times when away from the altar. 
 
 The indulgenced prayers consist of three aspirations to our Lord 
 one aspiration to the Holy Spirit, and the two following aspirations to 
 Mary "Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation" (300 days each time), 
 and "Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, pray for us" (300 days be- 
 fore the Blessed Sacrament). 
 
 The prayer to Jesus is a good-bye to- him when leaving the sanctuary. 
 He is taught as a person who will be absent when we are away from the 
 altar, but whom we will think of with fond memories. 
 
 The prayer to "Our Lady" is the following : 
 
 "A Visit to Our Lady 
 "(After Holy Communion) 
 
 "I. 
 
 "Mother, upon my lips today 
 
 Christ's precious blood was laid ; 
 That blood which centuries ago 
 
 Was for my ransom paid. 
 And half in love and half in fear, 
 
 I seek for aid from thee, 
 Lest what I worship, wrapt in awe, 
 
 Should be profaned by me. 
 
 271 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 "2. 
 
 "Wilt thou vouchsafe, as Portress dear. 
 
 To guard these lips today ? 
 Lessen my words of idle worth 
 
 And govern all I say ; 
 Keep back the sharp and quick retort 
 
 That rose so easily ; 
 Soften my speech with gentle art, 
 
 To sweetest charity. 
 
 "3. 
 
 "Check thou the laugh or careless jest 
 
 That others harsh may find ; 
 Teach me the thoughtful words of love 
 
 That soothe the anxious mind. 
 Put far from me all proud replies, 
 
 And each deceitful tone, 
 So that my words at length may be 
 
 Faint echoes of thine own. 
 
 "4- 
 
 "O Mother, thou art mine today, 
 
 By more than double right ; 
 A soul where Christ reposed must be 
 
 Most precious in thy sight. 
 And thou canst hardly think of me 
 
 From thy dear Son apart ; 
 Then give me from myself and sin 
 
 A refuge in thy heart." 
 
 The above is an example of one of the most dangerous seductions of 
 the cup of abominations. Our Lord is taught as something past and 
 gone and as merely blood. The fact that he has reposed in the soul (evi- 
 dently as a piece of the Blessed Virgin's flesh) is represented as some- 
 thing that should make the Blessed Virgin love the soul. She is repre- 
 sented as having the soul always in her sight and as being the person 
 who controls it and is present to it. 
 
 She is here put into the place of God the Father, who always sees 
 the soul and who after Holy Communion sees it and Jesus in it ; she is 
 put into the place of God as Holy Ghost, who influences the soul, who 
 teaches it and soothes it and aids it; she is put into the place of God 
 the Son, who is Jesus, and who in his heart gives us a refuge from sin ; 
 she is put into the place of Jesus, who remains in the soul in person as 
 God, and who is there after Holy Communion to help and watch over 
 the soul. 
 
 [28! 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 By this abominable prayer, the fruit of Holy Communion is the 
 presence of Mary in the soul to watch it and be with it and care for it 
 during the day. All the aspirations that would naturally be addressed 
 to Jesus after Holy Communion, if the soul believed that Jesus had 
 really been received, are here addressed to Mary. She is the person who 
 is taught as remaining in the soul by virtue of this Holy Communion, 
 inspiring it and loving it. She is represented as Jesus and as the Holy 
 Trinity; as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent; checking the actions 
 and protecting from evil. And when the altar-boy leaves the Sanctuary 
 he is expected to leave Jesus, and to take Mary with him wherever he 
 goes. (Acts 7:40.) 
 
 The true faith teaches that after Holy Communion God the Father 
 is looking at the soul with satisfaction, on account of the presence of 
 his Son; Jesus, God the Son, is present and we have a refuge in his 
 heart; God the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete sent by Jesus, is now the gift 
 of Jesus in the heart; and this Paraclete (the Holy Spirit of Jesus and 
 the Father) is present, consoling, watching, inspiring, checking, loving. 
 
 All that the true faith teaches of God is by this idolatry transferred 
 to Mary, and she is addressed and worshipped and honored and loved, 
 with the prayer, the honor, the confidence and the doctrines that belong 
 to God and that do not belong to Mary, and that cannot be applied to 
 her except by the greatest and grossest idolatry, by denying the true 
 faith and insulting Jesus. 
 
 Dishonesty 
 
 The false prophet when accused of idolatry always has "explana- 
 tions." Sometimes these are merely gross lies. They are always lies ; 
 but sometimes the lies are backed up by sophistries by which he tries to 
 "make the worse appear the better reason." Sometimes he tries to prove 
 an alibi by pointing to the catechism and to some other pious book 
 where there is contained some article of the true faith ; and he says : 
 "Do you see how this book teaches this subject? Therefore, it is im- 
 possible that we do what you say. The catechism says that the Mass is 
 worship of God through Jesus ; therefore, we do not pray to Mary. The 
 catechism says that only God knows our most secret thoughts, words 
 and acts, and is omnipresent; therefore, your charge cannot be true." 
 For the church forbids in theory what she teaches in theory and prac- 
 tice, (i Tim. 4:1-2.) 
 
 Images, PiSlures and Talismans 
 
 Catholic writers point with scorn to the Protestant practice of for- 
 mer years which forbade the use of pictures and symbols in religion. 
 They tell us that Protestants, when they first separated from Rome, 
 would not even put a cross on their churches. That they destroyed all 
 
 [29] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 images and looked upon them as tools of the devil and idols of idola- 
 ters. 
 
 If I am not mistaken, Protestants were somewhat right in this idea 
 and practice at that time. There are still idols in the church. I hear of a 
 picture that moves its eyes. Copies of this picture sometimes move their 
 eyes also ; but the copies must be authentic, and must be procured from 
 the nuns who have the original. 
 
 Here are some extracts from a pamphlet distributed by the Catholic 
 Truth Society on ''Our Lady of Perpetual Help" : 
 
 "We find the first miraculous picture about the middle of the I5th 
 century, in the possession of a pious merchant who lived on the island 
 of Crete. He was so tenderly devoted to the Blessed Virgin that his 
 happiest hours were spent before a little shrine, where he had deposited 
 his precious treasure. . . . History has not handed down to us what 
 artist first conceived the sublime idea or was so singularly favored as to 
 portray this favored Madonna. . . . 
 
 . . . "At this moment the pious merchant, remembering the many 
 favors he had received from the Queen of Heaven, was suddenly in- 
 spired to exhibit before his despairing companions the miraculous pic- 
 ture. . . . 
 
 "Kneeling down on the deck of the storm-tossed ship, they joined 
 their hands in fervent prayer before the Sacred Picture. Scarcely had 
 the unfortunate ones raised their entreating eyes toward Mary, when 
 lo, the storm ceased, the heavens became bright, the surging waves gave 
 way to a calm and placid sea, and a few days later the ship arrived 
 safely in a port of Italy. . . . 
 
 . . . "Such was the first prodigy which Almighty God manifested in 
 honor of his blessed Mother through the instrumentality of this fa- 
 vored image. . . . 
 
 . . . "Accordingly on the 27th of March, 1499, a most imposing cer- 
 emony took place before the assembled clergy and people of Rome. Our 
 dear Madonna was carried in triumphal procession through the streets 
 of the Eternal City and placed in a beautiful church which she had so 
 singularly selected for her future resting-place. It was from this Sanc- 
 tuary she would continue to dispense her special graces and favors to 
 the multitudes who would there seek her maternal protection." 
 
 The following are extracts from the hymn and prayers to Mary con- 
 tained in the same pamphlet: 
 
 "Thy love has smiled upon me 
 
 Ere I thy name could know, 
 Before my first Hail Mary 
 So long, so long ago." 
 
 "Behold at thy feet, O Mother of perpetual Help, a wretched sinner 
 who has recourse to thee and confides in thee; O Mother of Mercy, 
 have pity on me. I hear thee called by all the Refuge and Hope of sin- 
 ners; be then my refuge and hope. Assist me for the love of Jesus 
 
 [30] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 Christ. Stretch forth thy hand to a miserable fallen creature who rec- 
 ommends himself to thee and devotes himself to thy service forever. 
 
 "I know that with thy help I shall conquer. I know that thou wilt 
 assist me if I recommend myself to thee ; but I fear that in time of dan- 
 ger I may neglect to call on thee and thus lose my soul. This grace, 
 then, I ask of thee, and this I beg with all the fervor of my soul, that in 
 all the attacks of hell I may ever have recourse to thee. O Mary, help 
 me. O Mother of Perpetual Help, never suffer me to lose my God." 
 
 "O Mother of Perpetual Help, grant that I may ever invoke thy most 
 powerful name, which is the safeguard of the living and the salvation 
 of the dying." 
 
 "O Mother of Perpetual Help, thou art the dispenser of all the gifts 
 which God grants us miserable sinners, and for this he has made thee 
 so powerful, so rich, and so bountiful that thou mayst succor us in our 
 misery." 
 
 "In thy hands I place my eternal salvation and to thee I intrust my 
 soul." 
 
 "Obtain for me, therefore, the pardon of my sins, love for Jesus, 
 final perseverance, and the grace to ever have recourse to thee, O 
 Mother of Perpetual Help." 
 
 Thus we see how Mary is put in the place of God, and Mary's picture 
 in the place of the Blessed Sacrament. We see Mary in the place of the 
 Holy Spirit, the Paraclete whom our Lord sends to put us in mind of 
 him and to help us to love and to pray; we see her in the place of the 
 Father, who hears us for the love of his Son ; we see her in the place 
 of Jesus, the mediator and advocate who obtains the pardon of our 
 sins; we see her in the place of the Trinity Father, Son, and Holy 
 Ghost always present to hear and help us, and to whom we owe those 
 aspirations which the idolaters address to Mary. 
 
 No wonder there are Modernists. 
 
 Protestants were right in their fear of the use of images. They had 
 just left a church in which they had practiced idolatry; in order to 
 wipe out the stain and to preserve their children from infection, there 
 was no way but to avoid the occasion of sin. The pendulum, when 
 swung too far to one side, swings far to the other in restoring the bal- 
 ance and coming to rest. It is the law of nature. 
 
 Protestants did what total abstinence societies do in their campaign 
 against intemperance. They did what alcoholists must do when they 
 give up the habit. They did what the Catholic church thought itself 
 justified in doing when it forbade Catholics to read the Bible. The Bible 
 is still unknown to the average Catholic, and there are numbers of Cath- 
 olics who have never seen one, and who fear the use of the Bible as 
 they fear poison. 
 
 Protestants now use pictures, flowers and symbols in religion without 
 fear; for their children have been trained in the correct use of them, 
 and idolatry is no longer with them, even as a tradition. 
 
 Another enemy of our Lord and his real presence is a book called 
 
 [31] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 "The Keepsake of Calvary." This is a book written evidently to con- 
 vince us that the relics of the so-called wood of the true cross are a 
 special legacy left to us by our Lord to remind us of him and to give us 
 a memorial to love and venerate. 
 
 The history of the relics is told and a great deal is made of the vener- 
 ation shown to these pieces of wood, and of the animosity shown to 
 such reverence during those ages of superstition and corruption known 
 as the "Ages of Faith." 
 
 These ages, known to Protestants as the "Dark Ages," are also 
 known to all true Catholics as the "Dark Ages" ; for they are ages of 
 ignorance and superstition in the church and among nations. 
 
 The only keepsake of Calvary left us by our Lord is the Blessed Sac- 
 rament. This is the memorial he wishes us to love and venerate. But in 
 the Dark Ages this memorial was much neglected, while religious honor 
 and faith were given to such things as pictures and statues and medals 
 and pieces of wood. These things received honor due to our Lord, even 
 as the subjective image of Mary now receives such honor. 
 
 The book mentioned advances as an argument in favor of the vener- 
 ation of these pieces of wood the example of the preservation of Lu- 
 ther's inkwell by Protestants, and the reverence shown by Protestants to 
 memorials of their religious leaders. This is a most dishonest argument ; 
 for Protestants do not give such things religious honors. And if they 
 did the fact would not furnish us with any reason to do the same. 
 
 If our Lord had desired that the wood of the cross should be pre- 
 served as a memorial and keepsake of him, he would have so instructed 
 his Apostles. On the contrary, he provided that such things should dis- 
 appear. The religious veneration of such articles is opposed to the true 
 faith and to the purpose of our Lord in establishing the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment. 
 
 We would undoubtedly feel emotion on beholding the wood of the 
 cross on which our Lord was really crucified. But we feel none on be- 
 holding the relics reputed to be such, and I thank God that I am not re- 
 quired to expend on pieces of wood the honor due to himself. How 
 many who feel wonder and emotion in the presence of such articles are 
 without love and belief in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament ! 
 
 What a blessing it is that the Providence of God left no trace of the 
 body or the tomb of our Lord's mother ! It is not necessary to believe 
 that God took her body into heaven. God was not obliged to take her 
 body into heaven ; and though he perhaps did so, we are not obliged to 
 make an act of faith in any such legend or tradition. It is sufficient that 
 he has shown his mercy to us in not leaving such an object to become 
 the center of another of those great idolatries of which there have been 
 so many. 
 
 The infallible truths left to the church by our Lord are few and 
 fundamental. The conclusions resulting from them, like the conclusions 
 resulting from the fundamental truths of mathematics, are demonstra- 
 ble. The axioms of revelation, like the axioms of mathematics, must be 
 
 [32] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 accepted by faith and as infallible. The rules deduced from them and 
 the problems solved by them are matters of demonstration. Persons 
 who are not expert mathematicians may, for lack of time and skill, put 
 their trust in the solutions offered by those who have worked out the 
 problems ; but this is an individual affair, a matter of expedience. For 
 the human race such solutions are matters of demonstration, and not of 
 faith, and cannot be taught as the axioms of faith. Every soul is at lib- 
 erty intellectually in regard to them. He is bound by the integrity of 
 things, but not by the person of the mathematicians. 
 
 There are many things believed in the church that are not the infalli- 
 ble truths committed to the church by our Lord as his revelation and as 
 the truth of salvation. 
 
 Nobody needs to believe in the pieces of wood called relics of the 
 true cross. There is not any evidence for them. 
 
 The First Commandment 
 
 The worship that the Chinese give their ancestors, or the worship 
 the Buddhists give the avatars of Buddha, is akin to Catholic practice. 
 
 According to Catholic arguments, these pagans cannot be accused of 
 idolatry, because they do not say these deities are God. 
 
 So long as Catholics refrain from saying to Mary "Thou art God," 
 they think they are not committing idolatry as though idolatry con- 
 sisted merely of calling a creature God. 
 
 What we owe to God is something more than merely saying "Thou 
 art God and all power has its origin in thee." We owe God the ac- 
 knowledgment of those relations he has with us. We owe him the 
 prayer and confidence and honor that Catholics give to Mary. 
 
 We owe Jesus something more than saying "Thou art a God sacri- 
 ficed as man." We owe him something more than the egotistical enjoy- 
 ment of the spectacle of his suffering as it passes before our eyes like 
 a panorama. We owe him communication in the relations he has with 
 us. 
 
 Jesus came to tell us of our relations with God, and to instruct us in 
 prayer. What he taught us is the contrary of the practice of the idola- 
 ters. 
 
 We need to communicate with our Lord in his being and office as 
 mediator and as intercessor between us and God; we need to adore 
 him and love him as our sweetness and life and hope, as our Helper in 
 the Holy Spirit ; we need to ask the Father of Lights in his name for 
 all we desire. 
 
 But Maryites give to Mary all that belongs to Jesus. Their idea 
 seems to be that as Jesus, being man, has certain relations with us, 
 therefore Mary, being a woman, has those relations actually ; that as 
 Jesus is intercessor because he is a man, therefore, Mary, because she 
 is a woman, is intercessor. They prefer Mary in these relations ; there- 
 fore, they "take" her instead of Jesus for their mediator. It matters not 
 
 [ 33 1 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 to them that there is no basis for such faith in Mary; for "faith is be- 
 lieving what you know isn't true." 
 
 They not only break the first commandment, but they stultify reason 
 and integrity and the true faith by their deceptions and lies and sophis- 
 tries. (2 Cor. 1 117-20.) 
 
 There is no greater delusion than the idea asserted by the false 
 prophet, that the worship of Mary springs spontaneously from the love 
 for Jesus. It does not. 
 
 Protestants love Jesus and do not pray to Mary. Catholics pray to 
 Mary who do not love Jesus. 
 
 The Maryite knows more imaginary things about Mary than he 
 knows true things about Jesus. He has not read the Scriptures. Our 
 Lord's life he knows only by the fragments he hears read from the pul- 
 pit. The legends regarding Mary have for him the same reality as the 
 record of our Lord. Before he can read he is taught the Hail Mary as 
 his prayer. Mary is his first God. He learns Jesus later, in theory, useful 
 chiefly for furnishing him with grounds for his worship of Mary. Per- 
 sonal devotion is primarily to Mary ; secondarily, to Jesus. 
 
 His worship of Mary is based on a false faith in her, a faith which 
 destroys the church's whole fabric of the teaching of the relation be- 
 tween us and God through Jesus. 
 
 Those teachers of religion who boast of the Catholic knowledge of 
 Jesus obtained by saying the rosary of Mary ; who limit personal rela- 
 tion with him to such prayer ; who teach this rosary as a sufficient and 
 efficacious knowledge of our Lord, insult the capacity of the mind and 
 heart of the average Catholic. 
 
 To make instruction and devotion such as is obtained by recitation 
 of the rosary of Mary, has an effect on the soul like that produced on 
 the faculties of a child by solitary confinement from birth. 
 
 Much instruction may be gained from sermons, but the soul of the 
 Maryite has nothing with which to apprehend a sermon of the true 
 faith. To him the sermon is rhetoric which passes through the mind 
 like wind and leaves no trace. All he hears is grist for the mill by which 
 he grinds out Hail Marys. Words regarding Jesus are merely words. 
 Words regarding Mary are something to do. Mary has been given to 
 him as practical religion. (John 8:42-49.) 
 
 In a book on the symbols used in the church I read that the symbol 
 of the heart of Mary, "almost certain to be found in Catholic churches," 
 has no basis in doctrine such as that of the symbol of the Heart of 
 Jesus (which, this writer says, rests on the revelation made to Mar- 
 garet Mary), and that its use must be attributed chiefly to the desire for 
 artistic symmetry in decoration. 
 
 But though this symbol has no basis in doctrine, it appears also in 
 prayer-books. Is this also due to the desire for artistic symmetry and 
 decorative effect? 
 
 A Catholic writer says that "The Catholic supreme devotion to God 
 is safeguarded by the obligation of hearing Mass every Sunday, which 
 
 [34] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 sacrifice, as every Catholic child is taught, can be offered to God alone. 
 The adoration which a Catholic pays to Christ really present on the 
 altar keeps this supreme devotion constantly before the mind/ 1 
 
 This merely means that a Catholic is not permitted to forget that 
 there is a God, and that Jesus is God. While the Catholic acknowledges 
 that Jesus is present on the altar, he does not acknowledge his presence 
 anywhere else; but adores Mary as the all-present being. Even in the 
 face of the presence on the altar, Mary is addressed as the presence in 
 the heart. 
 
 The denials of the false prophet remind me of this clipping, ex- 
 tracted by someone from a novel : "With one hand he held her beauti- 
 ful golden head above the cruel waves, and with the other called loudly 
 for assistance." 
 
 The "explainer" and "apologizer" with one hand holds his beautiful 
 painted idol above the cruel waves, and with the other madly denies 
 that he ever saw or caressed her. These explainers are not the "virgins 
 who follow the Lamb," and "in whose mouth no lie is found." (Is. 
 45:16-17.) 
 
 Authority 
 
 A writer tells us that "The miraculous medal so much found in 
 France . . . has not been approved by the church." 
 
 But the miraculous medal so much found in France is so lavishly 
 distributed in America that I doubt if there is an American Protestant 
 or Catholic who has not either seen or possessed one. With it are 
 distributed stories of its miraculous origin and works. If it has not been 
 approved by the church, why does the church distribute it by its official 
 orders? Why does the church propagate what it does not approve? 
 Does this mean that the false prophet propagates it until such time as 
 he can say that it is of faith because of its popular usage? 
 
 The miraculous medal shows the Blessed Virgin with her hands 
 pointing downward and shooting forth rays of grace. (Is. 26:13. Apoc. 
 13:16.) 
 
 Do not Catholics accept the miraculous medal from the orders just 
 as they accept the Sacraments? 
 
 Catholics need to be taught the grounds of faith. They need also to 
 be taught the doctrines of faith, and to have them distinguished from 
 the doctrines of men. They need to learn that the doctrines of men are 
 not and never can be doctrines of faith. 
 
 The Modernists tell us (so I hear) that the consensus of Catholic 
 belief produced by the "immanent sense" of Catholics is the ground and 
 rule of faith. If this doctrine is true, then idolatry and the worship of 
 Mary is the Catholic faith, and the doctrines that have been revealed 
 and defined of our Lord's nature and works are not the Catholic faith. 
 
 But the Modernist theory, if this is the Modernist theory, is not true. 
 The true ground of faith is our Lord himself, and our knowledge of 
 
 [35] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 him is based on the witness of the Scriptures, combined with all other 
 history and reason. The rule of faith is our Lord's own word as it is 
 recorded in the tradition handed down to us by the church, chiefly in 
 the Scriptures. 
 
 Belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or in the inspiration of 
 the church cannot be the rule of faith. The evidence for our Lord's 
 existence is historical evidence. Our ground for faith in him is intrinsic 
 to himself, and is supported by that internal witness which our Lord 
 tells us is the witness of souls of good will who are drawn by the 
 Father. Having accepted our Lord for what he is as well as for the 
 prophecies and results, we trust the witnesses who testify of him; and 
 we compare their witness with the word of Jesus and the testimony of 
 reason and history. 
 
 The church has no mission to define the products of the "immanent 
 sense" as Catholic doctrine. It can define only the deposit of faith left 
 by our Lord to the Apostles. It can declare what is reasonable and in 
 accordance with that doctrine and what is opposed to it ; but these are 
 declarations of the church and of human reason, and are not themselves 
 the deposit of faith, nor can they be taught as such. 
 
 The deposit of faith is a fact. It does not depend upon what Catholics 
 believe. There have been times when almost the whole church believed 
 heretically. Our religion rests on that deposit, and not on the practice 
 of the church. This deposit exists in definition and tradition. It can and 
 must be separated from the products of the "immanent sense" that 
 have become fossilized into doctrines accepted by Catholics often 
 'merely because they have been believed by many, or some, or most 
 Christians. Many of these human doctrines can be traced to some per- 
 son who is the "authority" for them. The basic truths of faith are 
 clearly defined by Jesus. All other truths can be deduced from them. 
 Only those defined by Jesus are binding "under pain of mortal sin," 
 as the infallible revelation. "Jesus is God," but the church is not God, 
 it is a witness to Jesus. It can witness to what Jesus taught; it cannot 
 teach as the revelation of Jesus what has been deduced by philosophers 
 from the teaching of Jesus. It can teach things as what they are, not as 
 something they are not. It can teach facts as facts, and beliefs as be- 
 liefs. The resurrection is a fact to which the church is a witness, as it is 
 witness to other facts. 
 
 The church is not a witness to the "assumption of the Blessed Vir- 
 gin," and has no evidence for it. It cannot be taught as a fact, nor can 
 we be commanded to "believe" it "under pain of mortal sin." 
 
 The church and the faith of the church were not built on the Bible, 
 but existed before the Bible was made. The church was built by the 
 oral teaching of the Apostles and by the institution of the Sacraments. 
 The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist of the Last Supper is 
 the foundation of the church as a visible organization with authority. 
 Our Lord's ordination of the Apostles and his command to them to go 
 as a body administering the Sacraments and teaching what he had 
 
 [36] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 taught them are the commission and foundation of the church. The 
 church has no authority, no commission, no revelation now that it had 
 not then. The doctrines that were not necessary to faith then are not 
 necessary now. 
 
 The books of the New Testament are records of the church. They 
 are a witness to the faith. The church existed before these writings 
 were collected into this book. The book contains the story of our Lord 
 as it was told by the persons who heard it from the Apostles. It con- 
 tains what the church can tell us of our Lord and his words. We do not 
 know of any other words of our Lord but those that are recorded in 
 this book. 
 
 The church is a fact. And the church is a witness of what is re- 
 corded in the Bible. The church is also a witness to the Sacraments and 
 to their institution and their meaning. 
 
 The church can tell us as a fact that our Lord said and did those 
 things recorded in the Bible ; and it can tell us as a fact that our Lord 
 instituted the Sacraments. It is a witness to those things as facts. It is 
 a witness to certain doctrines as the actual doctrines taught by our 
 Lord. These doctrines are facts of faith. 
 
 There are other things believed in the church that can not be taught 
 by the church as facts. The church is not a witness to them. She can 
 testify that they have been believed in the church. She cannot testify 
 that they are true. She cannot tell us that our Lord taught them. She 
 cannot tell us that she witnessed them. She can teach them only as be- 
 liefs and customs and opinions that have prevailed. 
 
 When doctrines are deduced by reason from the facts that the church 
 testifies to, these doctrines have the authority of those facts and that 
 reason. 
 
 When doctrines are not based either upon those facts nor upon rea- 
 son deduced from them, they have no authority and no amount of 
 arbitrary declaration of them as Catholic doctrines, and no amount of 
 practice built upon them, can make them true or make them infallible. 
 
 The idea many Catholics have that faith is based on the church is 
 wrong. The church is not a divinity. Faith is built upon our Lord. The 
 church is truly a witness an historical witness to our Lord and to his 
 teaching. She is also the minister of his Sacraments. 
 
 We must have faith in our Lord before we can accept the church as 
 the minister of his Sacraments. We get faith in our Lord by knowing 
 about him. But when our Lord is preached, we believe in him on the 
 evidence contained in his character and his doctrine, and in the fulfill- 
 ment of prophecy ; we do not believe in him simply on the word of the 
 church. 
 
 Having accepted our Lord, we accept the church as his minister on 
 the testimony of history and reason, the testimony of the church being 
 a part of that history. The church is first a witness to our Lord ; and 
 then a minister to him. 
 
 When the church defines a doctrine of our Lord, it defines a doctrine 
 
 [37] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 of our Lord. When it defines a doctrine of the church, it defines a doc- 
 trine of the church. The doctrines of our Lord are the infallible doc- 
 trines of God. 
 
 When the Bishop of Rome speaks to the church of Rome, he is 
 speaking to the church of Rome. When he speaks and acts as Bishop 
 of Rome, he is not therefore speaking and acting in the chair of Peter. 
 The chair of Peter and the chair of Rome are not identical, even 
 though the Bishop of Rome may be entitled to the chair of Peter. 
 
 The chair of Peter will exist when the city of Rome is no more. 
 There is no "eternal city" on this earth. The chair of Peter existed 
 before there was a Roman See, and it can exist when the Roman See 
 disappears. (Mark 28:20.) 
 
 Therefore we need not be dismayed at the prevalence of idolatry and 
 at the great display of authority the false prophet makes for it. The 
 Blessed Sacrament is the seat and the center of the church of the Sac- 
 raments, and the center of the unity of the church. We have his prom- 
 ises and we depend upon him. He knows his own ways of preserving 
 his truth, and he will preserve it. We have only to be true to him and 
 to refuse to practice idolatry. No one can command us to practice 
 idolatry and enforce the command. 
 
 Idolatry 
 
 We sometimes see in Catholic houses a picture entitled "Christ or 
 Diana?" It represents the Early Christian maiden standing before the 
 altar of Diana and refusing to throw in the grain of incense that would 
 save her life. Her pagan friends stand near and beg her to perform this 
 little act of homage, which to most of them means nothing. 
 
 Catholics do not think of applying to themselves the lesson of this 
 picture. 
 
 So accustomed are Catholics to idolatry, that it is often practiced 
 automatically by those to whom it means nothing. It is an act of no im- 
 portance. Just so the pagans who looked upon the worship of Diana as 
 a myth could not understand the Christians who refused the grain of 
 incense at the risk of torture and death. 
 
 Idolatry is looked upon with indifference even by those Catholics 
 who are forced to acknowledge its nature. They have not the faith the 
 first Christians had. Centuries of the habit of idolatry have taken it 
 from them. (2 John I :i-n.) 
 
 No wonder our Lord said "Woe to those by whom the scandal 
 comes," and "When the Son of Man comes will he find faith, think 
 you, upon earth ?" 
 
 Catholics are largely divided between the Maryites and the merely 
 nominal Catholics. The nominal Catholic thinks that so long as a Cath- 
 olic keeps the other eleven commandments, it does not matter whom 
 he prays to. He thinks prayer to Mary is a pretty and useful practice; 
 
 [38] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 it is sweet to see the women and children doing what is so poetical; 
 Mary is a beautiful idea as a God, and, after all, religion is only a sub- 
 jective thing anyway merely a myth. 
 
 This attitude is the fruit of idolatry. But for fear on account of 
 something about religion that appeals to the sense of uncertainty, and 
 the trust in an unknown power the nominal Catholic goes to church 
 and has a priest when he dies. The church is a habit. Also one's friends 
 and relatives must be considered. 
 
 The pagans who flocked into the church when it became the state 
 religion and fashionable brought the principles and the practices of 
 paganism with them. They merely substituted Jesus and Mary for 
 Diana and Minerva. 
 
 The improved system of morals that accompanied the change to the 
 Christian faith does not justify the idolatry. 
 
 The Christian idolatry is the second beast of idolatry seen by St. 
 John. It tries to disguise its nature by wearing the horns of the Lamb. 
 But it is the beast of idolatry among the nations, and its prophet is the 
 Antichrist. 
 
 The ancient world with its idolatries is the first beast of St. John. All 
 commentators agree to this. To follow the analogy is easy. The subject 
 is before our eyes all the time. Against this first beast of idolatry God's 
 anointed witness, the Hebrew church, held up the light of truth from 
 the candlestick it possessed in the testimony of the Old Testament. 
 
 Against the second beast God's second witness, the Catholic church, 
 holds up the candlestick of the New Testament. 
 
 Both witnesses testified against the false prophet and the harlot. 
 
 As the prophets of the old law saw the Hebrew church, the Spouse 
 of God, as a harlot in its practice, so St. John saw the religious adul- 
 tery of the Spouse of the Lord. 
 
 He saw the prostration of the witnesses also, and the apparent vic- 
 tory of the false prophet. But the Spirit of Life remains in the wit- 
 nesses. The Life has long been stirring. The Protestant Reformation 
 was an effect of it. The Council of Trent was a fruit of it. 
 
 The witness who has so long lain prostrate in the streets of the 
 spiritual Sodom, a mockery and a byword and rejoicing for the ene- 
 mies of religion, will soon shake off the garments of shame with which 
 the false prophet disguises her. 
 
 O Hope of the Church, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 thy vineyard has long been the prey of the beast; the vine has been 
 trodden under foot. 
 
 In the name of thy holy Child Jesus, send us more Life. O God of 
 Hosts, convert us and show us thy face and we shall be saved. 
 
 The church will sing again the glory of thy commandments and thy 
 salvation the long- forgotten Canticle of Moses and the Lamb. (John 
 15 :i. Apoc. 5 11-14; 16:2; n 13-11 ; 14:1-7; 19:11-16. Isaias. 
 
 [39] 
 
THE PRACTICE OF IDOLATRY 
 
 Summary of the Accusation 
 
 i) ! . The Maryite practice in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament is 
 nothing less than a denial of the real presence. 
 
 2). Maryite prayer, as practiced by the "Our Father and Hail Mary" 
 in combination, is a practical denial of our Lord's humanity, and a 
 substitution of Mary for him. (Acts 4:11-12.) 
 
 3). So has the worship of Mary become one with the worship of God, 
 that Catholics pass automatically from the Our Father into the Hail 
 Mary unconsciously also ; the person of Mary having become to 
 them one with the person of God. 
 
 4). Rome commands prayer to Mary. The clergy command prayer to 
 Mary. 
 
 5). Catholic prayer-books, books of devotion and books of instruction 
 and biography, teeming with the heresies on which Maryite practice 
 rests, are distributed with the approbation of Rome. The heresy is 
 propagated by societies formed for that purpose. 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY